Early Life and Career
Karmal was born Sultan Hussein on 6 January 1929, was the son of Muhammad Hussein Hashem, a Major General in the Afghan Army and former governor of the province of Paktia, and was the second of five siblings. His family was one of the wealthier families in Kabul. His ethnic background is disputed, some claim that he was Tajik who represented himself as a Ghilzai Pashtun but others claim that he descended from Hindu ancestors of Kashmir. In 1986, Karmal announced that he, and his brother Mahmud Baryalay, were Pashtun because their mother came from the Mullakhel branch of the Pashtuns. However, this was controversial, considering that lineage in Afghanistan is supposed to be traced through the father, not the mother. The accusation that he was of Indian Muslim ancestry comes from the fact that his birthname, Sultan Hussein, is a common Indian Muslim name. In addition, Karmal's own father denied his own ethnicity; Karmal's father was a Tajik. To further confuse the matter, Karmal spoke Dari (Persian) and not Pashto.
Karmal was born in Kamari, a village close to Kabul. He attended Nejat High School, a German-speaking school, and graduated from it in 1948, and applied to enter the Faculty of Law and Political Science of Kabul University. Karmal's application was turned down because of his student union activities. He studied at the College of Law and Political Science at Kabul University from 1951 to 1953. In 1953 Karmal was arrested because of his student union activities, but was released three years later in 1956 in an amnesty by Muhammad Daoud Khan. Shortly after, in 1957, Karmal found work as an English and German translator, before quitting and leaving for military training. Karmal graduated from the College of Law and Political Science in 1960, and in 1961, he found work as an employee in the Compilation and Translation Department of the Ministry of Education. From 1961 to 1963 he worked in the Ministry of Planning. When his mother died, Karmal left with his maternal aunt to live somewhere else. His father disowned him because of his leftist views. Karmal was involved in much debauchery, which was controversial in the mostly conservative Afghan society.
Read more about this topic: Babrak Karmal
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“It is the responsibility of every adult—especially parents, educators and religious leaders—to make sure that children hear what we have learned from the lessons of life and to hear over and over that we love them and they are not alone.”
—Marian Wright Edelman (20th century)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)